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Book Review

What is the relationship between science and governance? To what degree should political calculations influence the course of scientific research? On the one hand, the principled answer might be that policy by science -- rather than the reverse -- that politicians should never intrude into the scientific process, and that scientists should avoid placing themselves in the position of prostituting their professional qualifications in the service of any ideology or financial interest. On the other hand, a skeptic might argue that principles rarely survive the pursuit of power. Politicians and scientists generally have something the other wants, and so the notion of a “wall of principle” that might save scientists the seductions of politicization would likely prove quaint. Washington Post science writer Chris Mooney’s The Republican War on Science contends that recent Republican assaults on scientific autonomy are unprecedented, and threatens to undermine democratic debate. Mooney at times makes a persuasive argument, while inadvertently casting light on the polarizing and moribund state of American political discourse.

Summary

Mooney’s argument proceeds in four parts. In the first segment, the author discusses the growing role of science in policymaking, beginning with FDR’s “New Deal.” Republicans often found themselves opposing Democratic policy initiatives that enjoyed the widespread support of the scientific community. Scientific advances in the post-WWII era promised an age of peace and prosperity, and Republicans often found themselves cast as the anti-intellectual -- and, by extension the anti-science -- party. Barry Goldwater’s trouncing in the 1964 presidential election illustrated the power of the Democrat-science alliance. At the same time, however, Mooney notes that although he went down to defeat, “Goldwater’s campaign brought together, for the first time, the conservative activists who would ultimately achieve victory” (p. 29). The resulting coalition of religious and cultural conservatives with pro-business libertarians launched a broad frontal assault on their domestic opponents, beginning in the late 1960’s. The scientific community, perceived as having thrown in their lot with the Democrats, bore much of the brunt of Republican attacks.

The second segment documents Republican strategies for attacking scientific findings that threaten the profits of major corporate donors to the Republican Party. Recognizing the danger implicit in appearing hostile to progress, Mooney argues that Republicans have developed sophisticated strategies designed to suppress some scientific findings before they are released, or minimize the damage caused by scientific reports when scientists succeed in releasing them to the public. For example, Mooney observes that Republicans frequently declare that they are not “anti-science,” but rather are advocates for “sound science,” which Mooney contends stands as a code for an emasculated science devoid of any policy significance. Mooney includes a laundry list of these tactics in an early chapter that includes:

• Suppression. Mooney notes that the Reagan administration stalled the release of a report on acid rain on the grounds that it made the administration’s inaction on the issue look bad. He also alleges that reports have been “edited” to minimize the damage to Republican administrations; something that Mooney charges have been widespread under Bush. Chapter 8 details how a Republican-controlled Congress included language in an appropriations bill that raised the standards of proof for scientific studies, enabling corporations to challenge scientific findings earlier in the process, and creating prohibitive government-wide “peer review” standards for scientific information.
• Targeting individual scientists. Mooney contends that the Reagan and G.H.W. Bush administrations placed gag orders on scientists, and that recently scientists have faced sustained campaigns designed to destroy the public’s trust in individual scientists in order to discredit their research.
• Rigging the process. Republican president have frequently been guilty of packing advisory committees with ideologues who approach given issues with a closed mind, or who have serious conflicts of interest.

Related to these strategies are attempts by Republicans to selectively interpret scientific findings to minimize their effect, including:

• Errors and misrepresentations. One strategy, according to Mooney, is to simply misstate scientific findings. He argues that one of the clearest examples is George W. Bush’s claim that “more than 60” embryonic stem cell lines existed as justification for his executive order denying federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells. However, he argues that “spinning” is the more common method of misdirection, and discusses at length the prevarications employed by Republicans in the debate on climate change to justify their inaction in the face of scientific evidence of global warming.
• Magnifying uncertainty. Republicans are very effective at employing the nuances of scientific uncertainty to undermine public confidence in scientific findings. Mooney quotes the late Rep. George Brown, who argued that Republican demands for absolute certitude in scientific findings amounts to a “choice to ignore science rather than be counseled by it and an abdication of the responsibility to use the best knowledge available at any given time to serve the common good” (p. 20).
• Relying on the Fringe. Mooney accuses Republicans of cherry-picking those experts who agree with their preferred policy objectives, even when those experts are a small minority whose views are soundly rejected by the vast majority of scientists in the field. Mooney points in a later chapter to the “intelligent design” controversy as an exemplar of the kind of “pseudoscience” Republicans regularly invoke.
• Ginning up contrary “science.” Mooney argues that Republican-friendly industries and interest groups have attempted to bribe scientists to produce studies contradicting the scientific consensus on certain issues, and have also offered large financial incentive to get scientists to write letters challenging reports that damaged corporate financial interests.
• Dressing up values in scientific clothing. Mooney notes the controversy surrounding the FDA’s decision to reject over-the-counter sales of “Plan B” or “morning after” birth control pills. Ignoring a 23-4 recommendation from its scientific advisors, the FDA invoked the scientific-sounding claim of “insufficient data” as a pretext.

The third segment of Mooney’s argument focuses on the efforts of religious and social conservatives to counter scientific theories and studies perceived as anti-religious. Particularly with regard to the theory of evolution, embryonic stem cell research, birth control, and abortion, religious and social conservatives have deployed a variety of the tactics mentioned above to cast doubt on particular scientific findings, and to undermine the public’s faith in science in general. In one chapter, Mooney describes the efforts of religious conservatives to push the idea of “Intelligent Design” onto the education curricula in states like Pennsylvania and Kansas. In addition to this flank attack on science via the educational system, Mooney argues that conservatives are committed to infiltrating the scientific profession, recruiting conservative scientists and scholars to muddy the waters of scientific opinion. Mooney opines that whether these scientists are motivated by misguided ideological or theological reasons, or whether they have succumbed to outright bribery, the result is deeply hostile to the scientific search for truth:

That is where the true threat emerges. ID theorists and other creationists don’t like what the overwhelming body of science has to tell us about where human beings come from. Their recourse? Trying to interfere with the process by which children are supposed to learn about the best scientific (as opposed to religious) answer that we have to this most fundamental of questions. (p. 184).

In Mooney’s view, all such machinations represent the “epitome of anti-intellectualism” (ibid).

The fourth dimension of Mooney’s argument is that, as bad as the Republican’s have been historically on science, the Bush administration is comprehensively and systematically worse. Mooney points to a petition published by the liberal-Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which details eighty-five instances where the signatories alleged that the Bush administration had systematically undermined, suppressed, altered, or manipulated science in the service of its ideological agenda, as evidence of the Bush administration’s various scientific calumnies.^[1] Mooney charges that science-hostile policies on the part of the Bush administration – which include undermining the Endangered Species Act, erroneously linking abortion with breast cancer, political vetting of advisory committee candidates -- have occurred with such brazen frequency as to outstrip the worst depredations of the Reagan administration, at least in the eyes of scientists who have experienced life under both administrations (p.224).

To sum up, Mooney contends first that Republicans have a historical infatuation with anti-intellectualism that has frequently put them at loggerheads with the scientific community. Secondly, he argues that the Republican Party’s close alliance with the corporate world provides them with additional incentives to block scientific work that substantiates the damages wrought by the corporate search for profits. Third, he asserts that the Republican alliance with social and religious conservatives leads them to undermine and discredit scientific work that angers or threatens these groups. Fourth, and finally, Mooney argues that these historical trends have reached their logical apotheosis in the Bush administration, whose depth of devotion to both the business community and to evangelical Christianity is unmatched in modern American politics.

Analysis

The critical response to The Republican War on Science to date has been predictably polemical, with liberals generally expressing approval and conservatives pointing to weaknesses in Mooney’s argument. One progressive reviewer, Washington Post reviewer Keay Davidson, took Mooney to task for excessive “liberals good/conservatives bad” posturing and for failing to address some of the more serious philosophical and technical details of the science debate. However, that exception for most part proves the rule regarding partisan ventures into such ideologically sensitive territory.

Conservatives have generally dismissed the book as shamelessly partisan. The Washingtonian’s Chris Wilson found Mooney’s purist view of the scientific community unpersuasive, arguing that while Mooney betrays a tendency to treat “science as scripture. Ironic, given how much he bashes evangelists” (Wilson, 2005). Similarly, Daniel Conover of the Charleston Post and Courier complains that Mooney’s “tendency to preach to the choir also produces the book’s worst flaw. While long on examples of GOP-manufactured uncertainty, ‘The Republican War on Science’ at times offers only cursory examination of the claims that industry-funded ‘experts’ use to attack findings that contradict the party line” (Conover, 2005).

National Review’s Adam Keiper offers the most trenchant critique. Pointing to a long line of abuse of science for political ends by the Left, Keiper insinuates of the scientific community’s opposition to the Bush administration that an “impartial observer could be forgiven for getting the impression of a largely liberal list of signatories, led by a core of dyed-in-the-wool Democratic scientists who were political opposed to the Bush administration from the outset, all assembled by a liberal advocacy group trying to raise money in an election year. The fact that many scientists are liberal hardly demonstrates that Republicans are anti-science” (Keiper, 2005: 48). Keiper also accuses Mooney of grossly mischaracterizing the nature of modern conservatism:

Mooney here confuses conservative philosophy with crude misoneism – hatred of novelty. Conservatives, especially in America, embrace modern science and enjoy the fruits of technological innovation. Conservatives on the whole are likely more friendly to technology than are liberals in America. But we also recognize the reality of human limits, and seek to promote human virtues and preserve human goods for generations to come. Science can bring us to a better tomorrow only if we don’t lose sight of best about today (p. 49).

Keiper also argues that Mooney imposes retrospective judgment on Bush’s decision regarding embryonic stem cell research, and that his condemnation of Bush ignores that fact that Bush was the first president to fund stem-cell research, and that Bush was attempting to wend his way through an ethical thicket.

Liberals also noted a few lacunas in Mooney’s argument. George Washington political science professor Henry Farrell, for example, enthusiastically endorsed the book on his webblog Crooked Timber, but ruminated on a missing aspect of Mooney’s analysis of conservative hostility toward science:

Mooney does an excellent job of describing the consequences of the Republican relationship with science, but misses out on some of its causes and intellectual justifications. There’s a complex ideological knot there that needs to be unentangled. The ‘anti-science’ agenda of the modern right wing often goes hand-in-hand with an infatuation with the power of technology. Newt Gingrich is the prime example (Mooney more or less admits that there’s something he doesn’t get about Gingrich) – on the one hand presiding over the gutting of the infrastructure of science policy advice, but on the other pushing for a major increase in NSF funding. What gives?

Farrell believes that there is a libertarian “meta-narrative” that explains this strain of thought within contemporary conservatism for which Mooney doesn’t account:

It’s an implicit belief that science doesn’t impose limits, but instead provides tools, and that there’s no problem that can’t be solved by a combination of engineering prowess and can-do spirit. This combines a dislike for science when it suggests, say, that the environment can be serious degraded by human activity, with a boundless optimism in technology’s ability to solve whatever problems we face, and an underlying faith in a universe of effectively limitless resources. Thus the dislike for scientific consensus whenever it says that we face constraints on our freedom of action, e.g. the faith that Star Wars would work, despite the many good reasons for believing that it wouldn’t. Hence also the refusal to believe that global warming is a problem. This set of beliefs clearly has a strong elective affinity with pro-market values and is doubtless often highly convenient for business interests… But it can’t simply be reduced to a cynical smoke screen for material interests – there’s a real set of social beliefs there.

Farrell’s observations help explain the allure of conservatism that Mooney’s analysis appears to miss.

University of California history professor Naomi Oreskes, writing in Science Magazine, lauds Mooney for noting the interconnections in the Republican assault on the scientific community. “Scientists have traditionally been loath to foray into politics for fear of politicizing science, but Mooney’s book makes it clear that when sensible people stand on the sidelines, a great deal of nonsense can be spread” (Oreskes, 2005: 56). Daniel Greenberg, writing in the London Review of Books, argues that Mooney did not analyze in sufficient detail the one-sided nature of the conflict. “On the science side,” Greenberg writes:

…it has consisted of petitions by Nobel laureates and other eminences, press releases, occasional editorials in scientific journals and feeble efforts to mobilise anti-Bush votes in 2000 and 2004. Though disturbed and offended by the administration’s manipulation, distortion and suppression of scientific data, science is not at the barricades. Most deplorable is the failure of the scientific establishment to help the public understand the reality and implications of Bush’s assaults on science

According to Greenberg, the dirty little secret of the American scientific community is its sycophantic pursuit of political largesse, and not that science itself is the object of a sustained political assault.

Gregory Lamb of the Christian Science Monitor offers a largely glowing review, and concludes that Mooney’s book is an excellent primer for those worried about the Bush administration’s hostile treatment of science. Johns Hopkins science and technology professor Stuart Leslie largely agrees with Mooney, but offers this caveat as to the origins and the threat of the conservative assault on the scientific community:

The conservative offensive against science does not come from “a postmodern take on science,” as one of Mooney’s sources suggests, but rather from a pre-modern one. The essential conflict, Mooney recognizes, is between the “reality-based community,” as one Bush adviser famously dismissed it, and a “faith-based community” broadly defined to go way beyond traditional religion. Imperial regimes have always sought to construct their own realities. What makes such regimes so dangerous is not any postmodern slide toward relativism, as Mooney seems to believe, but gold old-fashioned absolutism. Mooney is right to point to the crucial connection between foreign and domestic policy, including science policy. But the Republican war to worry about is in Iraq. Science is just collateral damage (Leslie, 2005).

In a similar vein, MIT professor and former Washington Post science writer Boyce Rensberger contends that Mooney is rightly concerned with conservative’s manipulative use of uncertainty. He credits Mooney for being both a “wonk and a clear writer,” two qualities in the field of science journalism that appear rarely in the same individual.  

Evaluation

Reviewers do well in evaluating the work of first-time author’s to grade on a curve, and I would say that as a first-time author Mooney dares greatly, and has largely succeeded in writing a compelling and provocative book. Mooney’s prose is accessible, and when he enters the thicket of policy analysis, he does so in a manner that non-experts can readily comprehend. Two of the central narrative anchors for the book – the Republican-controlled Congress’ decision to abolish the Office of Technology Assessment and the emasculating implications of the Data Quality Act – strike me as particularly effective illustrations of the degree to which elements of the Republican Party appear willing to allow political considerations to trump objective science and scholarship.

Likewise, Mooney is right to denounce the sorry state of contemporary science reporting, which in many ways simply reflects the wider crisis in American journalism. The reflexive tendency of journalists to seek “balance” over “truth” quite often results in tipping the scales in favor of the side that is deliberately seeking to undermine the appeal of reason and objectivity as a basis for resolving political disputes. In this sense, Mooney’s narrative fits into a much broader movement, and perhaps might have benefited from recognizing the full scope of the conflict. The war, as Leslie so starkly has put it, is much broader than simply a conflict over scientific output or the ideological status of the scientific profession. To some extent, partisans are engaged in a war over the very nature of objectivity, and whether objectivity is a feasible or desirable approach to politics.

That said, aspects of Mooney’s argument are less satisfactory. The polemical title is too often matched by breathless, hyperbole-ridden prose perhaps more calculated to fan the flames of partisanship rather than dampen them. Mooney’s tendency to sweep up all Republicans in his denunciation also strikes me as unfair, although I suspect that he has established a pretty solid prima facie case against significant elements of the current Republican Party. In that sense, Mooney occasionally succumbs to a mirror image of the close-minded partisanship of which he accuses Republicans.

Additionally, the polemical title of the book creates an enormous burden of proof that I doubt Mooney can meet. Mooney would need to prove much more than an occasional flirtation with anti-intellectual populism and a commitment to undermining the scientific support for regulatory policies: a war on “Science” writ large would likely be more comprehensive than whatever skirmishes the current Republican leadership supports or countenances. Of course, a more accurate title – The Republican War on the Regulatory State – would likely not have sold as many books.

In conclusion, The Republican War on Science is an interesting book, at times quite compelling, but ultimately reflective of the tempests of the current age: too angry at other Americans to offer a truly objective account of the role that science and scientists should play in the policymaking process. I would recommend the book to my liberal, but probably not to my conservative, friends. To anyone who is truly interested in the relationship between science and politics, The Republican War on Science might be an interesting book on a list that would include the cataloguing of alleged Democratic offenses against the scientific community. Perhaps then an objective observer would be better able to judge whether Mooney’s central thesis – that Republicans are predominately the sinners, and that the scientific community is predominately the sinned against – has merit.

References

Conover, Daniel, “Book likely won’t change minds about GOP’s stance,” Charleston Post and Courier

Davidson, Keay, “Research and the Right: Is the Bush administration really bent on ignoring scientific findings?” Washington Post, September 18, 2005, Sunday Final Edition.

Farrell, Henry, “The Republican War on Science,” Crooked Timber webblog, posted August 30, 2005 http://crookedtimber.org/2005/08/30/the-republican-war-on-science.

Greenberg, Daniel S., “Those bastards, we’ve go to cut them back: review of ‘The Republican War on Science,” London Review of Books, September 22, 2005: 17-18.

Kieiper, Adam, “A Vast Conspiracy?” National Review, October 10, 2005

Lamb, Gregory M., “Science and Politics: A Dangerous Mix,” Christian Science Monitor, September 27, 2005 www.csmonitor.com/2005/0927/p11s02-bogn.htm.

Leslie, Stuart, “Science suffers in the Right’s political war on reality,” The Baltimore Sun, September 18, 2005 Sunday Final Edition.

Oreskes, Naomi, “Anti-Realism in Government,” Science Magazine, Volume 310, October 7, 2005. www.sciencemag.org.

Rensberger, Boyce, “Subverting Scientific Knowledge for Short-Term Gain,” Scientific American, October 2005, Volume 293, Issue 4, p. 106-108.

Wilson, Chris, “Review: The Republican War on Science,” Washingtonian, October 2005, http://www.washingtonian.com/bookreviews/117.html.

^[1] The Union of Concerned Scientists’ URL is http://ucsaction.org/ucsaction/home.html.